INVESTIGATION OF STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD MATHEMATICS IN MIDDLE SCHOOLS IN SAUDI ARABIA

Many students in Saudi Arabia complain that they achieve poor results in mathematics and appear to have a negative attitude toward the subject. The current study, therefore, investigates students’ attitudes towards mathematics, using a mixed method approach, in 13-16 years old students from the intermediate level of education. The age was important because this period is thought to be crucial to the formation of lasting attitudes and opinions. The first main research question, the study aims to address is therefore, “What are students’ attitudes towards mathematics in Saudi middle schools?” The study also aims to explore gender issues using a second research question, “Is there any significant gender difference in students’ attitudes towards mathematics?” The survey was conducted in two government-run middle schools in Saudi Arabia, one boys’ school and one girls’ school, because Saudi Arabia has an exclusively single-sex education system. 180 participants (90 boys and 90 girls) were asked to complete a questionnaire to show their views about mathematics. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected at the same time, but the analysis of each type of information was conducted separately to enable the full picture to be understood. T-test was used to explore any gender differences. The main findings were that both male and female students in two Saudi middle schools show a positive attitude towards mathematics, with female students being slightly more positive than males. The factors which affect attitudes towards mathematics in both genders include the usefulness of mathematics in everyday and future life and career, the teacher, enjoyment of mathematics and the difficulty of the subjects. Girls’ attitudes towards mathematics were also affected by the influence of social media personalities and internet teachers.   Article visualizations

Using Social Media In Flipped Classrooms In Saudi Universities: Faculty Members\u27 Experiences

Traditional education is no longer viable at the present time. In light of technological development and the adoption of a number of diverse technologies in the field of education, the student has become a vital element in learning through student-centered learning environments. Saudi universities are striving diligently to keep up with the technological development and the employment of modern trends in the educational process through the gradual merging of interactive learning methods or strategies, such as the flipped classroom, active learning, cooperative learning, etc. The flipped classroom plays an important role in enhancing the positive role of the learner during the educational process by providing the students with content before the lecture by the use of technology and exploiting class time in debates, problem-solving, creating, synthesizing, and applying. There are many various technology tools and online platforms that can be used in implementing the flipped classroom, such as Blackboard LMS, Google Docs, Wikis, blogs, Facebook, etc. Also, there are a number of advanced countries that have implemented flipped classrooms by the use of various technology tools and social platforms. For example, in Saudi Arabia, Al-Harbi & Alshumaimeri (2016) applied the flipped classroom approach by uploading videos on the Edmodo site. Therefore, this study focused on faculty members\u27 experiences in using social media as a flipped classroom tool in Saudi Universities. The study addressed four main questions that focused on: faculty members’ experiences in using social media in teaching in Saudi universities, faculty members\u27 attitudes towards using social media in flipped classrooms, exploring how faculty members in Saudi universities use social media as a flipped classroom tool to address students’ learning preferences per the R2D2 framework, and factors that prevent or limit Saudi faculty’s social media uses in flipped classrooms. In addition, the study discussed significant interaction of the differences between some groups in the study, such as relationship of academic rank to experience in using social media in teaching, relationship of less experienced and more experienced faculty members in Saudi universities to using social media as a flipped classroom, relationship of gender differences to faculty members\u27 attitudes towards using social media in flipped classrooms and factors that prevent or limit Saudi faculty’s social media uses in flipped classrooms. It should be mentioned here that this study adopted Bonk and Zhang’s R2D2 framework for online learning (Reading, Reflecting, Displaying, and Doing) in order to explore to what extent learning environments and instructional strategies used in Saudi universities support the diversity of students. Mixed-method research was employed in this study. The questionnaire was used as the quantitative method giving the whole picture about the topic and research questions, while the interview was used as the qualitative method helps in getting a deep understanding of the research questions by moving from question to question. A total of 391 participants (199 male and 192 female) participated in the quantitative data collection, among which 8 volunteers (4 male and 4 female) participated in interviews. The results of this study imply that faculty members in Saudi universities have experiences in using social media in teaching through exchanging knowledge, response to students\u27 questions, and creating groups to help students discuss with each other by the use various types of social media such as Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Blackboard. Also, the findings imply faculty members\u27 positive tendency towards using social media in flipped classrooms; however the faculty members did not take students’ learning preferences into account during the use social media as a flipped classroom tool. Most activities used by faculty members through the employment of social media as a flipped classroom tool focus largely on the reading category that addresses verbal and auditory students. Finally, the findings assert that there are many factors that prevent or limit the faculty members from using social media as a flipped classroom tool such as weak infrastructure, lack of access to the Internet, reluctance to giving up the use of traditional methods in order to employ technology and modern methods in teaching practices, etc

The Association between Farmers’ Psychological Factors and Their Choice to Adopt Risk Management Strategies:The Case of Pakistan

Agriculture is a risky business, and risk persists in all management decisions taken by a farmer at the farm level. Disrupting agricultural business severely affects the livelihood of individual farmers and negatively affects the country’s economy. To cope with risks, farmers’ tend to mitigate the harsh impact of risks by adopting risk management strategies. Such an adoption decision is affected by several factors, most importantly, the psychological factors, i.e., risk perception and risk attitude of the farmer. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to understand farmers’ risk perception and risk attitude that affect their behaviour in making decisions at the farm level in a risky prospect. The association is investigated by employing chi-squared tests and Cramér’s V. The indirect impact of socioeconomic characteristics of the farmer via their psychological factors is conducted using structural equation model (SEM) path analysis. Their direct impact, together with psychological factors, are examined using the probit model. The two models are compared statistically for better performance and interpretations of the results. From the results, we found that risk perception and risk attitude are the key driving forces of farmers’ decisions during uncertainty which induce them to adopt risk management strategies. Other key variables and their quadratic functions that significantly affect farmers’ behaviour include education level, farming experience, off-farm income, and farm size. Thus, it is vital to consider these factors while assessing farmers’ behaviour in a risky prospect

The Determinants of Efficiency, Profitability and Stability in the Banking Sector: A Comparative Study of Islamic, Conventional and Socially Responsible Banks

This study aims to investigate the determinants of efficiency, profitability and stability in the banking sector across the world over the period 2005-2012. In this study, efficiency is measured using data envelopment analysis (DEA), which is divided into technical efficiency (TE), pure technical efficiency (PTE), and scale efficiency (SE). The profitability is represented by return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and net interest margin (NIM). Furthermore, the z-score and capital ratios are the main indicators for stability. The data includes 323 banks (43 Islamic, 242 conventional, and 38 socially responsible banks [SRBs]) from around the world, covering 37 countries. The statistical methods to find the determinants are ordinary least square (OLS) and fixed effects model (FEM). The data for this study was extracted from the Bankscope and World Bank databases. According to efficiency, the DEA measures demonstrate that socially responsible banks (SRBs) are the most efficient banks. This is due to the fact that SRBs management employ minimum inputs; one of the main characteristics of SRBs is the saving of resources (inputs). In contrast, the least efficient scores are achieved by conventional banks. As conventional banks have higher interest expenses to pay. In terms of Islamic banks, the larger banks were found to be more efficient. Furthermore, lending services are important to maximise outputs effectively. Additionally, efficiency in Islamic banks is influenced significantly by earnings. Islamic banks with higher capitalisation were found to be more efficient, and new Islamic banks operate better than older banks. Regarding the macroeconomic factors, countries with better market capitalisations include more efficient Islamic banks. Based on the conventional banks’ findings, banks with a higher size performed better than the smaller sized banks. The loans profits increased the efficiency significantly. Focusing on age, the more recent banks achieve better efficiency scores. The three types of ownership (foreign, domestic, and public) reflect inverse correlations with DEA. With regards to the external variables, the wealth of the country is highly important in terms of efficiency. In addition, stock market growth supports the efficiency positively and significantly, while inflation and the global financial crisis (GFC) influenced the efficiency negatively and significantly. Concentrating on SRBs, banks with more capitals operated more efficiently than lower capitalised banks. Additionally, GDP, inflation and market capitalisation enhanced efficiency significantly. Overall, the relationship between the control of corruption and efficiency is positive and significant in Islamic, conventional and socially responsible banks. Tighter controls on corruption have led to better efficiency. Regarding the profitability, the highest ROA and ROE were attained by conventional banks. This is because the main aim for conventional banks is to achieve returns, and charging interest maximises their earnings. On the other hand, SRBs scored the lowest ROA and ROE as those banks are primarily concerned with providing social and environmental services over profits. According to NIM, Islamic banks do not have interest expenses, which can allow them to score the highest NIM measures in this study; while conventional banks have the minimum NIM ratios due to higher interest expenses. Based on the Islamic banks’ results, Islamic banking was affected positively by total assets of banks. In addition, the stable Islamic banks achieved greater profits based on the strong associations between z-score and earnings. This contradicts the relationship between profitability ratios and capital ratios, which indicate negative and significant correlations. Depending on country-specific factor, Islamic banks in higher productivity countries could not exploit the growth to gain higher profits. This results in a weakness for Islamic banks in terms of being resistant to higher inflation rates. For the conventional banks, size of bank and capital are highly important for profits. The conventional banks can concentrate on providing more loans to maximise their returns. The stability of conventional banks also has positive and significant associations with profitability ratios. Concerning the SRBs, profitability ratios are affected significantly and positively by stability (z-score) and market capitalisation growth. On the other hand, foreign, domestic and public ownerships negatively impacted the profits. According to industry-specific variables, GDP growth reduces profits significantly. For the stability, SRBs are demonstrably the most stable and resilient system against financial crisis. Accepting more deposits and attaining greater profits significantly increase the stability of all banks and lower the risk of insolvency. Overall, listed banks were found to be more efficient, profitable, and stable than unlisted banks. This study helps managers and policy makers within the banking sector to reduce costs and increase profits with lower risks. In addition, finding the positive determinants allows managers to make more decisions based on positive factors. On the contrary, through raising efficiency, profitability and stability in banking, managers can aim to avoid negative variables altogether. Finally, this study contributes to the literature in terms of adding socially responsible banks into the equation. In addition, comparing efficiency, profitability and stability simultaneously is a new method that can allow bankers to build effective strategic decisions based on the determinants.Saudi Arabian Governmen

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Natural Resources: Blessing or Curse? Empirical Evidence from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)

This paper investigates why foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows are disproportionate among resource and non-resource sectors in oil-rich countries over the period 1980-2017. We constructed a balanced panel of data for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries from the database of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and disaggregate data from The Financial Times. We regress total and sectoral FDI inflows on oil rents to a GDP ratio, controlling other socio-economic variables. Our results first consider oil rents. This proxy for natural resources is negatively associated with total FDI inflows. The oil rents/GDP share and resource-based FDI have a significantly positive correlation. However, the adverse effect of oil rents remains true in the case of the non-resource sector foreign investment. Second, oil price fluctuations lead to a rise in the non-resource FDI but discourage resource-related FDI inflows. These empirical results confirm that FDI-Natural resources curse through the crowd-out effect of natural resources in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Our results are robust to different panel data estimators

Ensuring a sustainable hospitality and tourism industry in the COVID-19 era:using an open market valuation technique

Tourism has always been one of the most profitable service industries. But because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tourism industry is facing some big problems. As a result, the tourism industry lost a lot of money. This paper aims to find and rank recovery solutions to help the tourism industry. This article investigates two key areas: firstly, how government aid can best be prioritised among the various subsectors of the hospitality and tourism industry, and secondly, whether public assessment of the measures the US government took against the pandemic is related to the outlook for recovery, including the role played by perceptions of government performance and efficacy at handling the crisis and self-efficacy in terms of avoiding infection. Two studies were conducted among US consumers, using different methods of data collection and analysis. The first study utilised an open market valuation technique to explore how governmental aid might be prioritised among the tourism and hospitality industries. The second study used AMOS/SEM to examine travellers’ positive perceptions of the likelihood of hospitality and tourism industry recovery. Study 1 found that all six industry subsectors investigated (hotels, airlines, restaurants, car rentals, casinos and cruise lines) had been influenced negatively by COVID-19, with the heaviest impact felt by hotels and cruise lines. Study 2 indicated that the level of public satisfaction with the US government’s performance in addressing the pandemic was positively related to expectations of hospitality and tourism industry recovery. The findings could guide policymakers in deciding how best to allocate public funds between the different subsectors of the hospitality and tourism industry

Nexus between energy pricing and carbon emission. A policy mix response of developing economies

The study utilised a data set of South Asian countries of energy pricing (E.P.), carbon emission, and policy mix between 1990 and 2020. A comprehensive set of models from econometric such as fixed effect (F.E.), and panel quantile regression (P.Q.R.) is used to determine the relationship between underline indicators. Furthermore, the T.O.P.S.I.S. method from operational research was applied to determine the efficiency level of these factors in the South Asian region. E.P. and carbon emission are contributing positively to the process of household consumption (H.C.). In the policy mix scenario, H.C. is positively associated with inflation while negatively with the tax rate. Furthermore, the outcomes of the T.O.P.S.I.S. indicate that Bhutan is performing efficiently in the said parameters followed by Pakistan, while India’s performance is not impressive in this regard. This study can be helpful to policymakers for effective energy demand planning, conservation, and frame policies that would ensure sustainable H.C. and serve as motivation to search for alternative energy sources to meet the growing energy demand

Enhancing ERP Responsiveness Through Big Data Technologies: An Empirical Investigation

AbstractOrganizations are integrating big data technologies with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems with an aim to enhance ERP responsiveness (i.e., the ability of the ERP systems to react towards the large volumes of data). Yet, organizations are struggling to manage the integration between the ERP systems and big data technologies, leading to lack of ERP responsiveness. For example, it is difficult to manage large volumes of data collected through big data technologies and to identify and transform the collected data by filtering, aggregating and inferencing through the ERP systems. Building on this motivation, this research examined the factors leading to ERP responsiveness with a focus on big data technologies. The conceptual model which was developed through a systematic literature review was tested using Structural equation modelling (SEM) performed on the survey data collected from 110 industry experts. Our results suggested 12 factors (e.g., big data management and data contextualization) and their relationships which impact on ERP responsiveness. An understanding of the factors which impact on ERP responsiveness contributes to the literature on ERP and big data management as well as offers significant practical implications for ERP and big data management practice.</jats:p

Diagnostic impact of emergency ultrasound for cholecystitis

Background: Previous studies reported different rates of accuracy considering the use of POCUS in diagnosis of cholecystitis indicating that POCUS is not enough when deciding the management. The aim of this study is to compare POCUS findings in the diagnosing of the acute cholecystitis performed by both emergency medicine residents and radiologists. Methods: A retrospective chart review was conducted in the ED of KAMC, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The population consisted of patients presented to the ER with RUQ (right upper quadrant pain) and had an abdominal ultrasound performed in the past 6 year. The study used BEST Care system to access the data of patients who underwent ultrasonography, since January 2016 using a data collection sheet. Results: Our results included 1871 patients admitted in KAMC. Emergency physicians had success rate of 25% in correctly reporting the presence or absence of wall thickening, and 44.1% for pericholecystic fluid. In addition, scanning by emergency physicians has a success rate of 60% in detecting CBD dilatation, 12.7% for Murphy’s sign, and 46.3% for acute cholecystitis. Moreover, we found that the presence of thickened gallbladder wall in the ultrasonographic finding is a significant predictor for cholecystitis as it is increasing its incidence by 2.09 times (P=0.038). Conclusions: Ultrasonography conducted by emergency department could be useful in detecting characteristics of gallbladder however, in our study, it showed low accuracy in detecting gallstones and acute cholecystitis compared with surgical and pathological finding